The New England Historical and Genealogical Register Volume 167 April 2013 Whole Number 666 www.AmericanAncestors.org NEW ENGLAND HISTORIC GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY® www.AmericanAncestors.org 99-101 Newbury Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116-3007 Tel: 617-536-5740 • Fax: 617-536-7307 To advance the study of family history in America and beyond, the New England Historic Genealogical Society educates, inspires, and connects people through our scholarship, collections, and expertise. 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See our website, www.AmericanAncestors.org, or contact Member Services at 1-888-296-3447 for details. VOLUME 167 Whole Number 666 APRIL 2013 THE NEW ENGLAND HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL REGISTER® Contents Editorial 83 Origins of Mathias and Nicholas Sension Determined Jerome Lafayette Santken 85 The Origins of Thomas1 Harris and William1 Harris of Providence, Rhode Island Helen Schatvet Ullmann and L. Randall Harris 96 Luke Mills of Northampton County, Virginia, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire Barbara Vines Little 105 The Identity of Nathan Fish of Groton and Pepperell, Massachusetts Pamela Fish-Tyler 118 Abigail Cobb, Wife of Ebenezer7 Fairbank, and Daughter of Ebenezer2 (Stephen1) Cobb of Cheshire County, New Hampshire Patricia Sezna Haggerty 125 The Two Elizabeth3 Daniels of Medfield, Massachusetts Austin W. Spencer 135 The Estate of Martha Harris and Early Bacon Families of Eastern Connecticut Gale Ion Harris (concluded from 167:34) 140 The Earliest Shermans of Dedham, Essex, and Their Wives: Part 3: Henry Sherman the Younger and His Wife Michael J. Wood (continued from 167:54) 149 Reviews of Books 157 ________________________________________________________________________ EDITORIAL STAFF HENRY B. HOFF, CG, FASG, Editor ([email protected]) HELEN SCHATVET ULLMANN, CG, FASG, Associate Editor and Book Review Coordinator JULIE HELEN OTTO, Indexer ________________________________________________________________________ Funding provided in part by This publication is supported by a generous endowment from Ruth Chauncey Bishop ® NEW ENGLAND HISTORIC GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY ADMINISTRATION D. BRENTON SIMONS, President and CEO THOMAS R. WILCOX, JR., Vice President and Chief Operating Officer RYAN J. WOODS, Vice President EDWARD G. MACMAHON, Vice President for Development and Member Services BOARD OF TRUSTEES DAVID H. BURNHAM, Cohasset, Mass., Chairman CAROLYN A. LYNCH, Marblehead, Mass., Vice Chairman WILLIAM GRIFFETH, Park Ridge, N.J., Treasurer HAROLD HUNTER LEACH, JR., J.D., Hamilton, Mass., Secretary 2013 WILLIAM M. CROZIER, JR., Wellesley, Mass. • JOSEPH SWAN JUNKIN, Weston, Mass. VIRGINIA WHITMAN KOSTER, Boston, Mass. • NANCY S. MAULSBY, Fairfield, Conn. PETER M. SMALL, Concord, Mass. • PETER C. STEINGRABER, Providence, R.I. 2014 ELIZABETH GODDARD, J.D., PH.D., Prairie Village, Kans. • JO ANNE CROWLEY MAKELY, Seabrook Island, S.C. • FRANK C. RIPLEY, PH.D., Middleburg, Va. • KRISTIN SERVISON, Brookline, Mass. • KATHLEEN A. VAN DEMARK, M.D., Rockport, Mass. • MORRISON DES. WEBB, J.D., Harrison, N.Y. 2015 JUDITH WAITE FREEMAN, New Orleans, La. • DONALD R. FRIARY, PH.D., Salem, Mass. DAVID WATSON KRUGER, Exeter, N.H. • BONNIE A. REILLY, Indianapolis, Ind. JONATHAN BUCK TREAT, Belmont, Mass. • CHRISTOPHER M. WHITE, Boston, Mass. TRUSTEES EMERITUS RODNEY ARMSTRONG • RUTH CHAUNCEY BISHOP • JOHN G. L. CABOT • ABBOTT LOWELL CUMMINGS • ALLIS FERGUSON EDELMAN • DOROTHY BREWER ERIKSON • WILLIAM M. FOWLER, JR., PH.D. • KENNETH HAUGHTON • JAMES T. LARKIN • JOHN A. MOORE • ALVY RAY SMITH, PH.D., FASG • ROBERT CROLL STEVENS • JOHN LOWELL THORNDIKE The New England Historical and Genealogical Register is published in January, April, July, and October by the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS), 99-101 Newbury Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116-3007. Copyright © 2013 by NEHGS (ISSN 0028-4785). All rights reserved. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without the permission of NEHGS. All contents of this periodical are archived for member access at www.AmericanAncestors.org. The periodical’s name and titles and headings are trademarks of NEHGS, a nonprofit corporation qualified under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The name and seal of NEHGS are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and may not be used without the express permission of the Society’s Board of Trustees. For subscription and membership information, see the inside front cover of this issue. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, Massachusetts, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to Member Services, NEHGS, 99-101 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02116-3007. EDITORIAL Careful research may bring completely unexpected results. That is what hap- pened to the author of Origins of Mathias and Nicholas Sension Determined. These two Great Migration colonists were assumed to be closely related, and Mathias had been shown to be from London. The author, Jerome Lafayette Santken, found their baptisms in London, along with the other children of Christopher Sension (under several name variants) and wife Joan. Christopher left a will in 1629, naming his wife and living children. The research then took a surprising turn when the author found the 1617 record of Christian Santken, a member of the Dutch Reformed Church in London, whose description exactly matched that of Christopher Sension. Further research expanded the family to include the brother of Christian/Christopher and their probable father, all of whom came to London about 1582, perhaps from Antwerp. The next article is The Origins of Thomas1 Harris and William1 Harris of Providence, Rhode Island, by Helen Schatvet Ullmann and L. Randall Harris. The authors show the two Harris brothers were baptized in Northbourne, Kent, and came to New England with two or three sisters in the mid-1630s. The article presents the family of their father, AndrewA Harris, and continues with a full treatment of the family of Thomas1. Because of his common name, this Thomas Harris has been confused with other men of the same name. This article carefully separates them in an Addendum. Luke Mills of Northampton County, Virginia, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, married in Portsmouth in 1734 and left descendants. The author, Barbara Vines Little, has reconstructed the earlier generations of this Mills family from extensive research in original Virginia records — and Delaware records since Luke’s father moved to Sussex County, Delaware [then in Pennsylvania], about 1744. Many of these records have been microfilmed, but some are available only at the Northampton County courthouse, like the tax and tobacco lists, 1724– 1729, which were important in estimating the ages of Luke Mills and his brothers. The Identity of Nathan Fish of Groton and Pepperell, Massachusetts, by Pamela Fish-Tyler, shows how convoluted genealogy can become. The author demonstrates that Nathan was born in Groton in 1730, the illegitimate child of an older Nathan Fish and Lydia Bennett. Lydia had three other illegitimate children (one of whom was Nathan’s twin brother), all before she married in 1737 James Fisk. The similarity of the names Fish and Fisk led to the twin boys being known sometimes as Fish, sometimes as Fisk. The 1897 Fairbanks genealogy gave “Miss Abigail Cobb” (no dates, places, or parents) as the wife of Ebenezer7 Fairbank. This sparse information was the basis of Patricia Sezna Haggerty’s article, Abigail Cobb, Wife of Ebenezer7 Fairbank, and Daughter of Ebenezer2 (Stephen1) Cobb of Cheshire County, New Hampshire. She has included an account of the descendants of Stephen Cobb (say 1710–1754), whom she shows as the immigrant because his ancestry 84 New England Historical and Genealogical Register [APRIL has not been found, despite extensive research. Coincidentally, the ancestry of Stephen’s father-in-law, John Hinds of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, has not been found either. Coincidentally, in two recent issues of the Register, men were also treated as immigrants because their ancestry was not found: Sampson1 Dunbar (1721–1804) in the July 2012 issue, and Thomas1 Whetten (ca. 1715–1785) in the October 2012 issue. In The Two Elizabeth3 Daniels of Medfield, Massachusetts, by Austin W. Spencer, two first cousins named Elizabeth Daniel (sometimes Daniels), born in 1679 and 1681